Florida woman. Former Jersey girl/Jersey driver. Likes hairspray, the beach and cutting you off on the A1A.

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There will be no blogging today due to my extreme grief caused by a clueless husband on the loose with a hedge clipper in his hand who thought he was doing the world a favor by stepping over the little border fence at the edge of my flower bed trampling the iris leaves to hack down a giant cluster of perennial sunflowers that i have been cultivating for 12 years and it was just about the only thing that was thriving in this stupid summer of copious rain alternating with blazing heat and not just hacking it down but digging it out by the roots and claiming that he thought it was an enormous weed with yellow buds about to open on it even though he is completely unbothered by any actual weeds around here and this isn’t even the first time his superpower to misidentify a highly valued plant as a weed and annihilate it has rendered me inconsolable.

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49 thoughts on “X”

What is it about a man and his hedge clippers ? Is it because we don’t let them carry six-shooters anymore? Every year I tell my herbicidal maniac if he wants to trim azaleas, he must do them before the end of July. Every year he trims them in Sept. By the following spring, some blooms manage to survive 😦

I gotta tell you, this sentence had me rolling. I LOVED reading this. So please forgive me for barging in on your blog but I’d just stopped over from MOTUS which has your site linked and discovered X. It is the funniest and most poignant one sentence lament I’ve ever read. As a gardener myself I certainly identify with your perspective but as one who loves the language, this one sentence truly belongs in a class by itself! It’s an award winner!

Wait, wait! Fabric weight matters?! This is the first I’ve heard of that! I wuz feelin all sorry for you and everything regarding the sunflower chopathon but now your credibility is, how shall I say – strained.

Wife is OCD on laundry…won’t let me near the controls! I know better than to think I’m helping. 🙂 Thanks for the tips, ladies. Regrettably none of this brings back a 12-yr old sunflower. So Sorry Suzette!

You know, upon further reflection, I must agree with your succinct assessment of the degree of cruelty. It SO could be worse, indeed. How could I be so thoughtless and hasty with my own? Please accept my apology for even bringing it up.

I’m so sorry, I can empathize with you as my husband has (this year alone!) mowed down budding tulips, blueberry and currant plantings, the perennial gladiolas that were on their second year, and a couple of rhubarb plants. When I asked him what he was thinking while he’s riding around on the tractor, he said “I wasn’t sure if they were weeds.” “So can’t you err on the side of caution?!”

My condolences on your loss. I’ve always wanted to grow sunflowers, but the moles/chipmonks eat the roots of them before they even get started. This means that I’m doubly pained to learn of the recent demise of your beloveds. Again, I am sorry.

Call me defensive but I must stand up for the male species here. I’m wondering if your hub is being driven half mad by recent events in his country of birth? What an unholy mess! Having said this I give you permission to loose every means of punishment or retribution for “acting stupidly” and no means of solace for yourself should be rejected.

Similar story here. I put some weeds in the yard waste bag and saw it was FULL of what used to be my black eyed Susan’s, which were growing to shade my hostas from the early morning sun and to provide welcome late summer color when everything else is fading. Jokes on him though as those babies are impossible to kill with just a serious chop job. The WORST transgression is in-judicious grass seeding. My blood pressure shoots sky high when I see the grass growing in my perennial beds because of over seeding carelessness!

Yes, yes, yes. I was reminded of a previous post of yours regarding scraps of wood, baseboard moulding and various remnants of home improvement projects. Husband couldn’t find the compressor attachment to fill car tires. He typically hangs it over a collection of every scrap of lumber he has saved in nineteen years in this house. We went through EVERY single scrap to find that nozzle! Finally, after borrowing one from the neighbor, hubby got the extender hose out to reach tires. Guess what was attached to the end of that hose? The hose that is only used to fill tires, that I didn’t even know we owned. Oddly enough, I noticed some obsolete, out of style, totally replaced ten years ago, baseboard moulding in the trash.

Praise high heaven that mine does the opposite. He sets out to pull weeds and leave the majority of them in the ground. He then says, “Well, they had buds and flowers on them so I thought you planted them.” My yard is now one big weed. I’m sort of OK with that.

I am kicking myself about the clippers. I was the one who sent him outside with the clippers – although for a different purpose on the other side of the house and with the directions to clip only one 2 ft swath of picker bushes. I should have known better.

I’m sorry but I call BS on your hubby’s claim of cluelessness. Cutting them down with the hedge trimmer I can understand. My husband has done that as well. But one thing my husband would NEVER do is actually dig weeds out by the roots. Too much work. Therefore, if he did this, it was intentional. I sympathize, Suzette, but don’t let him get away with the “it was an accident” excuse. 😉

Late to the group grope, but I believe pruning shears should be locked in a cabinet to which only I have the key. Many years ago, in another life, with a former husband, I found that not one but two marvelous apricot trees plus a Satsuma plum tree (if you’ve ever had one you’ll remember its lusciousness) annihilated. Pruned to a state where none of them ever recovered. Not one.

Neither did the marriage, though not because of the pruning. At least I don’t think so. But maybe? Contributing factor? Sign of other trespasses to come? Hmmm…